‘Get Out Now!’ Massive PETA Messages Advise Saranac Egg Profiteers that Change is a-Comin’ 

For Immediate Release:
April 8, 2025

Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382

With egg farmers like those at locally-based Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch left scrambling as avian flu tears through their shameful livelihood—resulting in the killing of nearly 6.5 million egg-laying hens in the area—PETA is erecting sky-high messages along Bluewater Highway in Saranac and Chicago Drive in Grandville encouraging them to learn from former tobacco farmers’ experience and abandon their ill-fated industry before it’s too late. PETA points out that the handwriting is on the factory farm wall: While the egg industry has been facing soaring production costs and skyrocketing egg prices as a result of the millions of hens they have prematurely slaughtered, interest in vegan eating is booming and vegan egg recipes are plentiful, nourishing, as well as cruelty-and-cholesterol-free.

“Cramming birds by the tens of thousands into filthy factory farm sheds that serve as disease incubators before hauling them to slaughter is both cruel and a dead-end way to make a living,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Egg farmers are fighting a losing battle trying to bail out their sinking ship of death and destruction, all while vegan eggs are flying off shelves and PETA is busy handing out vegan starter kits to anyone who opposes cruelty to animals.”

Chickens form complex social structures, dream when they sleep, and worry about the future, just as humans do. But hens used for egg production are crammed together inside wire-floored cages or filthy giant sheds where they don’t even have enough room to spread their wings. Once their egg production drops, they’re sent to slaughterhouses where their throats are slit—often while they’re still conscious—and many are scalded to death in de-feathering tanks.

The current bird flu outbreak has infected dozens of people across the U.S. over the last year alone, resulting in one human death so far and the slaughter of over 32 million chickens in 2025. PETA points out that breeding and raising animals for food creates hotspots for potentially deadly zoonotic diseases, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases in humans are transmitted due to contact with animals, including those used in animal agriculture.

PETA’s billboards are located near 6867 Bluewater Highway in Saranac and 4500 Chicago Drive in Grandville. Please see the Google Maps links here for the Saranac location and the link here for the Grandville location.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. PETA offers a free vegan starter kit and a coupon for any vegan Just Egg product. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.